Changes in SCV Profiles

I've been bringing this up quite a bit in other blogs because it seems that not many are aware of it. I can't blame them, why would someone check out the character bios on a website for a game that's nearly two years old? I personally discovered this on a thread at 8WayRun.com, so kudos to them. Shortly after former game director Daishi Odashima left the team, PS made a completely unannounced change to almost all the character bios on SCV's website.

All the returning characters were reverted back to their SCIV bios. This includes characters like Nightmare, Astaroth, and Yoshimitsu who were supposedly killed after SCIV and replaced with an identical successor. You can immediately tell by the fact that their height and weight stats have been set back to the original, even without looking at their backstory. This is also true for Aeon, whose profile now says he uses a single wielded axe and shield while constantly referring to him by his old name "Lizardman".

Had that been the extent of this change, I'd probably dismiss it as some sort of glitch. But it goes further than that. The backstories of characters introduced in the game (as well as Dampierre) were completely rewritten. I can't copy and paste from the website, so he's a shorter list of changes made to each character's backstory:

Patroklos: His backstory now states that he grew up idolizing his mother Sophitia (it also goes a long way to try to tell you how awesome she is), he believes that his sister should live up to their mother's ideals too, and is now trying to rescue her from the malfested so she can do exactly that. The best part is that his bio is now much more open about what an asshole he is. It states that no one is perfect, and Patroklos is far from perfect. It says he wants to live up to his mother's example, but can't manage it. Then it goes on to say that he talks big, but that's overcompansation for his inexperience and immaturity. The last sentence is: "Patroklos isn't the hero he believes he is, and deep down, he knows it". Burn.

Pyrrha: Pretty similar to the original backstory, though the beginning states that she was separated from Sophitia at an early age rather than abducted. After a long time of misfortune and tragedy, she eventually found herself under the control of Tira. Overall, her backstory wasn't changed too much with one exception: At the end, it states that the location of her mother is unknown rather than state that Tira killed her. Given everything else, we can safely assume this is setting up a retcon to bring Sophitia back.

Z.W.E.I.: His backstory was completely changed. Instead of being a mysterious person that people only know vague rumors about, he was now separated from his mother as a child and raised by Siegfried to be a warrior for Schwarzwind. That's right, he was raised by Siegfried rather than found by him when on the run from Graf Dumas' assassins. Also, similar to Raphael, his profile no longer mentions the word "werewolf" (though it does call "Minion" a "wolf spirit") like how Raphael's profiles never used the word "vampire". Oh yeah, and E.I.N. seems to have been renamed to "Minion", and you'll also notice how absolutely no mention of Viola was made in his backstory.

Natsu: Her story was completely omitted from her profile.

Leixia: Her profile remains to same, the only character who didn't have anything changed.

Xiba: His profile finally states his correct origins as being the estranged son of Xianghua and Kilik, as well as the half-brother of Leixia like all other languages. Other than that, nothing was really added or changed from the original.

Viola: Like Natsu, her story was completely omitted from her profile.

Dampierre: Like Z.W.E.I, his backstory was completely rewritten. Dampierre was once a noble who wasted away his fortune and reputation through gambling. He resorted to not only conning people to get money, but also crimes such as robbery, kidnapping, and extortion. Then he fell in love with a beautiful queen that he originally intended to kidnap. He renounced his corruption, and pledged his life to defending her kingdom. Pretty different from the original story where he sold Pyrrha to slavery and was partners with Cervantes.

It should also be noted that the profiles of unlockables Alpha Patroklos, Pyrrha Omega, Algol, Edge Master, Elysium, and Kilik were removed entirely.

I think it's going to be very interesting to see how this all plays out in the future.